


Riverine Ecosystems of the Lower Styx

by glisteningceruleaneyes



Category: Hades (Video Game 2018)
Genre: Disrespect of italics, Other, Rated M For Eventual NSFW and Also For Theological Bullshit, Respect of Chaos' autistic coding, Unsurprisingly canonical character death, more chapters to come just as soon as I figure out how to make chapters happen, rom com, when you say 'incomprehensible interdimensional god' I hear 'write a rom com'
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:02:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 10,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28440585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glisteningceruleaneyes/pseuds/glisteningceruleaneyes
Summary: “You have come to find me predictable, then,” Chaos said. They didn’t sound exactly offended—maybe calculating, or thoughtful, or their voice didn’t reflect any feeling at all, and he was merely projecting it onto them—but Zagreus felt a chill nonetheless. He imagined Poseidon wouldn’t take well to being told he was shallow and calm, or that Aphrodite would enjoy being told she was pretty but Only In A Friend Way.“Not, uh, exactly predictable,” said Zagreus, and was cut off as the portal finally extracted the necessary life from him and he was slurped into the abyss.
Relationships: Chaos/Zagreus (Hades Video Game), Skelly & The Concept Of Pain
Comments: 83
Kudos: 245





	1. The Scientific Method

Zagreus, still wiping numbskull dust off his face, stared down at the roiling black-purple surface of the Chaos Gate, and weighed up his options. On one hand, he was so beat up that, after visiting Chaos, even just stubbing his toe would be enough to plunge him back into the River Styx. On the other hand, he was going to die soon regardless, and this way he would get to see Master Chaos on his way out.

“Choices, choices,” he said, scratching his chin and finding an alarming amount of his own blood congealing there.

He sat heavily down against a pillar, rested Coronacht on his knees, and looked into the void. He hadn’t sat down in—oh, gods knew how many escapes now, and sitting and looking at something was more peaceful than he remembered. He tried to stay upbeat, since nothing annoyed his Lord Father Hades more than relentless positivity, but he was starting to think that, if his luck didn’t change soon, the depths of a Chaos Gate might be the closest he would ever get to seeing stars.

Bored of being maudlin, he stuck out his leg until it was centimetres from the gate, and wriggled his sandal closer and closer until there was a tiny tug of the vortex on his foot, and/or soul. The Chaos Gate didn’t extract a blood price the way that, by complete example, running blithely through a gauntlet of witches might. It stole vitality in a way that would probably be very worrying and permanent to anybody who was mortal.

“Weird,” said Zagreus, who wasn’t. He sat and watched the life energy slowly enervate from his toes.

 _“Son of Hades,”_ said the Chaos Gate.

“Yes?” He asked. There was a long pause, filled with whispering and emptiness. He got the impression that Primordial Chaos hadn’t expected him to respond.

_“What are you doing?”_

“I wanted to see how it works,” Zagreus said, gesturing down at the portal.

 _“You are seeking patterns that you might test and prove. Respond,”_ Chaos said.

Zagreus leaned back on his hands, kicking his feet in the life-draining void. “I guess,” he said. “I’m guessing you spoke up because I won’t find any.”

 _“It is a fool’s errand, Son of Hades,”_ said Chaos.

“But you do follow some rules,” Zagreus said, watching his shins slowly turn translucent, light-filled, purple. “Always portals, and they never open until I clear the chamber. And your boons follow a pattern—a curse for some chambers, and then a blessing if I survive beyond that. You never give me a boon that makes zero sense. It always revolves around my strength and my weapons and the like.” The translucence was travelling up his body slowly, as his proximity to the void slowly took the toll the gate required. “It’s never like, ‘The Son of Hades will sneeze after killing each enemy. Subsequently, he will feed some ducks.’”

There was a long, long silence from Primordial Chaos; even the creep of translocating translucence up his legs paused. For a second, Zagreus thought that the portal might spit him out and close forever. Eventually, Primordial Chaos said, as the passage of the gate toll started to creep up his body once again, _“Son of Hades, you have never even_ seen _a duck.”_

“The shades told me about them!” he said, sounding embarrassingly defensive.

 _“You have come to find me predictable_ , _then,”_ Chaos said. They didn’t sound exactly offended—maybe calculating, or thoughtful, or their voice didn’t reflect any feeling at all, and he was merely projecting it onto them—but Zagreus felt a chill nonetheless. He imagined Poseidon wouldn’t take well to being told he was shallow and calm, or that Aphrodite would enjoy being told she was pretty but Only In A Friend Way.

“Not, uh, exactly _predictable_ ,” said Zagreus, and was cut off as the portal finally extracted the necessary life from him and he was slurped into the abyss.

Zagreus found his footing in the realm of Chaos (or, given the way the place worked, footing found him) with trepidation. His body still tingled from the trip—being deconstructed and rebuilt somewhere new felt _funky._ Chaos, the god, was nowhere to be seen. He was surrounded by impossible architecture, eternally decaying and rebuilding itself, and a booming expanse of starry nothingness.

“When I said you follow some rules,” he began, addressing the booming expanse, “what I meant was—”

“You fear you have caused me offence,” said Primordial Chaos, from directly behind him. “Do not.”

Zagreus jumped and yelped, turning. Chaos was standing—floating—manifesting? very close to him, close enough that he could reach out and touch the hard-to-focus-on surface of their quote-unquote skin. If they were enjoying the irony of telling him not to fear while actively startling him, he couldn’t tell.

“I like you,” Zagreus said. “So I didn’t want to upset you. Especially not by suggesting you were…” he grimaced. There wasn’t a particularly good way of saying it. “Bad at your job?”

Chaos eyed him from several directions. Maybe they were amused, after all. “I have indeed become predictable, Son of Hades,” they said. “Before time and creation, I was everything and nothing; whether I existed as a person is a matter of opinion. The birth of Nyx and the imaginations of mortalkind has shaped me into the being you see before you. Mortals cannot picture infinity, and thus.” They spread their arms wide, as if to say, _here I am._ “Sentient. Having emotions. Able to be perceived by your senses, and to speak in a language you can understand. Genderless, as mortals envision Chaos should be, though it makes no more sense than thunder being masculine, or night being feminine. Physical.” They reached out and prodded Zagreus in the chest, over his heart, and he tried not to react to their touch.

“You’re saying that mortals imagine you this way, and you are who you are because of that,” Zagreus said. He wanted to grab their hand, but he let them withdraw it.

“Perception defines reality in many ways,” Chaos said. “To be perceived is to exist. Should infinity and probability have a human face? Once, they did not. Now, they do. Hence, I have a human face, and hence, I follow some rules, though primarily those I set myself.” They watched him processing their words before adding, “Hence, no blessing of ducks for the Son of Hades.”

Zagreus bit his lip and lasted only two seconds (or whatever time was, here) before he bent over, laughing.

“The ducks were an example,” he managed, eventually, and when he looked up, was blessed with a particularly rare boon; Chaos was smiling, their eyes wrinkling at the corners.

“I enjoy your company, Son of Hades,” they said. “You cause interesting things to happen.” As Zagreus tried to process if this was a compliment, they added, “Perhaps, in my growing predictability and your growing unpredictability, you could take my place one day.”

“I don’t know if I could pull off the fashion,” Zagreus said. The marble under his feet buzzed as Chaos chuckled, a sound that was simultaneously warm and charming, and the most unsettling thing he had ever heard.

“You should view the boons I offer you,” Chaos said. They gestured down to where he stood, where he was leaving bloody footprints on timeless marble. “Or else you will have to loan me your small gorgon friend to mop the floor.”

* * *

His escape attempt ended shortly after the realm of Chaos deposited him on his feet in the next chamber. On his next attempt, he clobbered the last Wretched Pest and looked up to see, bobbing peacefully along the bloody currents of the River Styx, a small white animal ruffling its feathers and preening them. The waters of the Styx didn’t seem to bother it; red liquid beaded and rolled off its head as it submerged itself and shook. The creature, in its hydrodynamic perfection, could only be one thing.

“Omigods,” he said, crouching to watch it. It was the best thing Zagreus had ever seen. As he watched, another duck paddled into view. The ducks were probably not analogous to mortal ducks; these were white like the animals the shades had described, but their beaks were black and had tiny teeth running along the insides, and they had two sets of beady purple eyes on each side of their heads. Maybe it was normal for ducks to look that way.

“You are perfect,” he told them. “You are the most perfect things that have ever existed.”

* * *

“What do they eat?” asked Hypnos, when Zagreus next waded out of the Styx. The sleep god was watching a duck that had been resting right beside where Zagreus had resurrected, now paddling away in the other direction. “They keep, uh, _ducking_ down to eat something. I didn’t think anything could live in the waters of the Styx, by definition.”

Zagreus watched the duck in question crunching on something. “The shades of bugs? The shades of water weed?”

“Zagreus, if bugs and plants have _souls_ , it’s going to fuck up our whole cosmology,” Hypnos said. “Look, it’s doing it again.”

They both watched the duck bob under the water again, fluffy butt pointing to the ceiling, and watched it resurface and crunch on something.

“Well, cosmology or not, they are eating something,” said Zagreus. “And I mean, look how happy it makes them.”

“The universe is full of mysteries,” said Hypnos. He watched the duck go about its business. “I just worry about the ramifications. You know, these ducks will probably have a cult one day.”

“They deserve it,” Zagreus said, hefting his sword up onto his shoulder. “They’re the first change this place has seen in years.”


	2. Ask A Question

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Congratulations, Son of Hades. You have discerned the purpose of an ecosystem,” said Chaos.

“You could carry the keepsake I gave you,” Chaos said, as Zagreus shook the tingle of the Chaos Gate out of his fingers. “You can’t always afford the price to come here, and yet, you continue to pay it. Respond.”

“Yeah, I know,” Zagreus said. “But I’m worried I’ll offend Meg if I don’t wear her earring sometimes, and this outfit doesn’t exactly come with a lot of pockets.” He leaned Exagryph against one of the pillars, which paused in its endless decaying and rebuilding to keep the weapon leaning upright. “Besides, no cost is too high to get to see you, Master Chaos.”

They hummed. “Flattery is unnecessary, Son of Hades,” said Chaos.

“But it’s so fun,” said Zagreus. He tested the marble underfoot and sat down on it. “Master Chaos,” he began.

“You look like you’re settling in,” Chaos said, a bit resentfully. “I did not intend to start a conversation.”

“I’m unpredictable like that,” Zagreus said, with a more-or-less straight face. Chaos blinked out of existence from behind their boons and re-manifested opposite him, forming legs to mirror his posture and folding their hands in their lap. They were hypnotically tall, built on a larger scale like all the older gods were, and even sitting, they loomed over him.

“Speak,” they said, though Zagreus’ mouth was dry at their proximity.

It took a second to remember what he had meant to talk about. “You made me ducks,” Zagreus said.

“Ducks... were made,” Chaos said, using the passive voice as masterfully as a Fury’s reluctant field report.

Zagreus frowned at them. “I love the ducks a lot,” he said, “but isn’t it… okay, look. Ducks need something to eat. And the things ducks eat will need things to eat. And something out there is also probably eating the ducks, or the House of Hades will be wading through ducks stacked four high before long.”

“Congratulations, Son of Hades. You have discerned the purpose of an ecosystem,” said Chaos.

“Isn’t it a lot of work to go to?” Zagreus asked, plaintively. Chaos was expressionless, so he fumbled for Hypnos’ words. “And doesn’t it have, uh… _cosmological ramifications?_ ”

Chaos looked at him. “Do you think creating a small aquatic ecosystem in the River Styx is a lot of work, Son of Hades?”

Zagreus rubbed his forehead. “I mean— _yes?_ ”

“You are concerned that I have wasted my time.”

“You make it sound silly,” Zagreus said, looking up at them.

“I have infinite time, Son of Hades,” Chaos said. “And often these things happen as soon as I consider that they might. Ducks were made, and so the things ducks need were also made. They were made because they wanted to be made, and because I thought perhaps it might be amusing for them to be made, and that such a thing might bring you joy.”

Zagreus processed this for a moment, and then he smiled. “Thank you, Master Chaos. They do bring me joy. Their little feet? The little sounds they make? Incredible. Very good.”

“Then the ducks shall remain,” said Chaos. “And, please do not worry about “wasting” my “time” in the “future,” Son of Hades.”

Zagreus raised his eyebrows. At some point he had clearly taught Chaos to do air quotes (or would teach them, in the future?). The effect was much more devastating when an entity could manifest several more pairs of hands to do them. The extra hands faded out of existence as their sentence ended.

“You’re fun, Chaos,” he said, the words getting out of his mouth before any supervisory part of him could look them over for manufacturing flaws.

Chaos looked at him for long enough that his grasp of reality started to fray around the edges. The void around the two of them seemed to shrink and fade into unimportance or non-existence. The marble under his body, once cold and hard to the touch, became softly frayed, insubstantial, as forgettable as gravity was becoming. His body felt distant and unimportant, cradled in a nothingness he could never have described, and a persistent hum rose in volume in his ears until there was only one voice he would be able to hear, only one voice that really mattered—

“Thank you,” said Chaos, and all Zagreus’ senses came rushing back with the stunning force of an underfoot Inferno Bomb. He wobbled in place, disoriented by the suddenness of reorientation. “It pleases me to know you find me so. I am glad for our continued interactions, both of the mundane and the enlightening varieties, Son of Hades.”

He wanted to meet their gaze again, but also didn’t know if he, or any facsimile of him, could survive the experience a second time.He had thought that Chaos was locked in their own domain the way that he was trapped in the House of Hades, but it wasn’t that at all; it was that no other domain was big enough to contain them. Whether Zagreus was immortal or not, Chaos could unwrite him so thoroughly from the universe that he would never have existed, if they chose.

He still existed, though. And Chaos had made ducks for him, or ducks had created themselves for Chaos, because Chaos thought ducks would please him.

“One last thing,” he said. “You have infinite time, you said. Or time isn’t real for you?” Chaos did not answer, which meant the answer was probably both, or neither. Zagreus ploughed onwards. “Do you get bored?”

“Boredom is impossible,” Chaos said. “It is impossible to become bored with infinite possibilities—or rather, boredom is extremely statistically unlikely to occur amongst infinite possibilities. If boredom ever eventuates for me, I would find the experience very interesting.”

“How about lonely, then?” Zagreus prompted. “It’s just you, out… here.”

“Out,” said Chaos. “And here? How quaint, Son of Hades. No. I miss individuals—Nyx, for example, and you, when you do not drop by, but loneliness is unlikely. There are many things within my domain—many responsibilities of mine, and many gods, many worlds, many realities, and many encounters besides. All are beyond your reckoning, and the reckoning of your relatives. In the face of the infinite universes I oversee, Zeus would weep to comprehend how small he is.”

Even with the very little Zagreus knew about his uncle, he found this idea both threatening and very, very funny. “These other… everythings,” Zagreus said. “They’re company to you? Neighbours, colleagues? Friends? Lovers?”

“Personal questions, Son of Hades,” Chaos said, their eyes sparkling with what was hopefully amusement. They leaned in closer to him. “To all of them: Yes. No. Occasionally. Not at all, and very much. Why do you ask?”

“I—“ said Zagreus, captured once again by their gaze.

Chaos continued, “It is difficult to answer the question of if I, the embodiment of the infinity of Chaos, can _get it—“_ Who had taught them slang, and was it Zagreus, and was he going to get in trouble for it—“as I can, in many ways, get _everything._ ”

Zagreus spluttering, thought about protesting that he hadn’t been asking. He didn’t. Lying to Chaos seemed at best futile, and at worst, ill-advised. He settled for, “Huh.”

“Huh indeed,” Chaos said. They vanished without even the generosity of a pop, and reappeared at a safer, further away distance. Zagreus started breathing normally again. “Select your boon, Son of Hades.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everybody's enthusiastic ecology comments have been such a delight to read! Thank u!!!
> 
> I basically wrote this whole fanfiction around the concept of the line "I don't just 'get it', I get everything," because the only respectable planning method for fiction is from joke to joke.
> 
> Also! I know I said six chapters, but then I realised that if I want to make the Very Sexy Choice of naming each chapter after a step in the scientific method then... well. Seven, I guess, now?


	3. Construct A Hypothesis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zagreus looked down at the ducks. There was no elegant way to say it. “Do you think it’s a bad idea to get a crush on a primordial deity?”  
> Megaera raised her eyebrows slightly. “Every idea you’ve ever had is a bad one, Zag.”

He found Megaera leaning on a balcony rail over the Styx, watching the ducks. He found a lot of people watching the ducks, these days (or nights, or whatever). She seemed as relaxed as a person like Meg could relax, so he felt safe approaching her. He leaned on the balcony beside her, just a little out of arm’s reach. She grunted to acknowledge him, her eyes not leaving the ducks.

“Zagreus.”

“Megaera.”

“I heard you might be to blame for the ducks,” she said, waving her hand towards where a small family of them bobbed below. “These ones have created other, smaller ducks.”

“Omigods.” Zagreus leaned ill-advisedly closer to her and further over the railing. There were indeed, other, smaller ducks bobbing on the current beside two larger ducks. “Babies? Child ducks? Subducks? Ducklets? Duggles? Demiducks? How many?”

“Six,” Meg said. She sipped her drink. “Don’t think any of them have the right amount of eyes, but damn me if they aren’t cute.”

She hadn’t threatened him yet. It was nearly a record. _Thank you, demiducks._ “Meg, I uh. Have a question. It’s tangentially… duck related. Duck adjacent.”

She looked at him sideways. It wasn’t a friendly look, but it wasn’t the look of a woman who was about to push him over the edge of the balcony, which was honestly all he could ask. “It’s about Primordial Chaos,” she said.

“Yes. Um. How did you…”

Meg waved down at the ducks again. “They have twice as many eyes as normal, the eyes are bright purple, and, naming no specific denizens of Hades—a certain hirsute somebody tried to eat one and got three snootfuls of wailing cosmic horror this morning.”

“Poor puppy,” Zagreus said. “So, good guess. Yes. Do you think it’s um…” He looked down at the ducks. There was no elegant way to say it. “Do you think it’s a bad idea to get a crush on a primordial deity?”

Megaera raised her eyebrows slightly. “Every idea you’ve ever had is a bad one, Zag.”

“Yeah, but—okay. I have come to realise Chaos is… more powerful than I think I understood before. So… What if they get upset with me and _unmake the universe?”_

“There’s still nightfall if Nyx has a bad day,” Megaera said. “Mortals still fall asleep if Hypnos is distracted. Animals still know how to run away if Artemis is fletching arrows. Gods are essentially redundant to most of these processes. Besides, they made ducks for you.” She pointed down at the surface of the Styx. “Exhibit A. You already know they care for you.”

Zagreus nodded slowly. “That’s a good point. Then… is it a bad idea, if not for the universe, for uh… me personally? Do you think?”

“If you cared what I thought,” Megaera said, voice even chillier than usual with an unnamable emotion, “You wouldn’t keep trying to escape.”

Zagreus looked down at his hands and breathed out, feeling guilty. “I do care,” he said. “I care a lot. There’s just other things I also care about. You’re a good judge of character, Meg. It’s kind of your whole thing.”

Megaera sighed dramatically. “Fine.” She turned to face him. “Zagreus, your whole life to date has been based in you pursuing terrible, impossible, bad ideas. So if you ask, would I, personally, try to date Primordial Chaos?” She paused for a second. “No, I would not.”

“You hesitated!” he said, incredibly vindicated. “They’re _hot,_ Meg. You see it too!”

“I mean, I wouldn’t say _no._ I could see like, a very casual thing,” she said, waving a hand dismissively. “ _But._ For you? With your big, absurd heart and your big, absurd feelings? I don’t think this is any more ill-advised or ridiculous than the rest of the decisions you make.” It was much nicer and much more verbose than she usually bothered to be with him. “Besides, it’s on brand for you,” and here, before he could take the time to be genuinely touched, she spread her hands and widened her eyes in fake shock. “Oh, look at me! My name is Zagreus, and I’m a big friendly boy who likes to push the envelope! My name is Zagreus, and I like to be out of my depth! And, most of all, I _love_ to be overwhelmed!”

The original Zagreus on the balcony was bright red. He looked towards the ducks to avoid her gaze. The baby ones were very cute.

“Way to call me out, Meg,” he said.

“Yeah, well. You get to know a guy,” she said. She shoved his shoulder roughly, which was the most affectionate gesture he’d seen in her repertoire. “Just don’t expose your mind to the unfiltered reality of the cosmos, like—overmuch. You can’t fight your way out of Hades if you have a zucchini brain.”

“Thanks, Meg,” he said. “My big, absurd heart does care what you think, and it appreciates your help very much.”

“And my small, calcified one has had about enough of your crush talk,” she said. “Instead—do you really not know the fucking word for ducklings, you unparalleled buffoon of a man?”

* * *

The next time he tried to escape, Zagreus picked up Aegis. He enabled the aspect of Chaos, and the metal grip hummed in his hand as Chaos said, _“Excellent choice.”_ He shivered.

“Ooh, are you gonna go a few rounds with that, boyo?” Skelly, not hearing the voice, shifted back and forth on his feet with single-minded skeletal excitement. “Gonna wail on my tail? Crumple my rumple? Desecrate my carbonate?”

“I’m not going to hit you, Skelly,” said Zagreus. “I know how to use this already.”

Skelly’s skull turned an unsettling amount on the y-axis as he tilted his head in confusion. “Turnin’ down the chance to own my bone? Rampage this ribcage? Be the reamer of my femur?”

Zagreus wrinkled his nose. “Do you get more overtly sexual every time I see you, Skelly, or is this just a good day for you?”

Skelly rattled in shock. “Boyo! There is _nothing_ overtly or covertly sexual about asking your strong friend to slam your fragile body with their big, rigid weapon over and over until you can’t take it no more.” He tsk’d despite having nowhere near the necessary anatomy to do this with. “Kids these days! Overtly sexual? You disgust me.”

Aegis hummed against Zagreus’ palm as Chaos said, _“The little skeleton desires the temporary release of death at your hand, Son of Hades.”_

“Less discussion, more concussion, boyo,” said Skelly, vibrating with enthusiasm. “Less hashin’, more bashin’.”

“He said ‘crumple my rumple,’ Master Chaos,” said Zagreus, planting his feet and bracing his shoulder as Aegis’ luminescent surface began to pulse with barely contained energy. He sighted on the skeleton and ducked down his head behind the edge of the shield.

 _“Then it would only be polite to crumple as he has requested,”_ said Chaos. _“Although he should have said ‘please’.”_

“That would make it so much worse,” Zagreus said, grinning into his elbow. He peeked up over the rim of Aegis, which trembled in his hands with contained energy. “Skelly, not until you ask nicely.”

The skeleton jumped in place. “Ohhh boyo, _pretty please_ , disarray my vertebrae,” said Skelly, leaving Zagreus no choice but to pulverise him into a column of upsettingly sated calcium dust. Zagreus left the chamber at a run before Skelly could reconsolidate and engineer more horrible rhymes.

“Who _hired_ him?” Zagreus asked the air of Tartarus.

 _“I think he finds the punishment its own reward,”_ Chaos said. It was impossible to tell, but also Zagreus was one hundred percent sure they sounded smug about the joke.

Zagreus groaned. “I should just let those wretches up ahead kill me.” He looked down at the shield. “So, uh. Master Chaos, you can hear through this? See through it?”

 _“It is a vehicle for my awareness,”_ said Chaos, which was less of an answer than they probably thought it was.

Zagreus considered the infinity of the universe for a moment. “Am I distracting you from something more important?”

The shield hummed in his hand. _“An interesting thought, Son of Hades,”_ said Chaos.

Zagreus whacked his way through the wretches. “I’m just conscious that you’re very important. And that I’m just like, some dude.”

Chaos, though speaking through a shield buzzing in his hand, sounded offended at this. _“We are both gods, Son of Hades. We are peers. It does not imply I am of greater importance if I have been doing this for longer.”_

Zagreus hoped that Aegis, vehicle of awareness or no, was not fine-tuned enough to its environment for Chaos to see how red he was going. “I don’t think a lot of people would see it that way,” Zagreus said.

 _“Their opinions are irrelevant,”_ said Chaos dismissively. _“What you are doing here is of interest to me, Son of Hades. You are of interest to me. You are not a distraction; you are a focus.”_

To really process the giddy feeling their words gave him, Zagreus would need to wrap his arms around a pillow and roll around on his bed, but he couldn’t; onto the next chamber, the next enemies, the next boon. “Thank you, Master Chaos.” He grinned. “Let’s go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow... writing is fun it turns out? I am personally having a blast. Because of that, and me being on annual leave, and also Hyperfocus, TM, I think I'll be able to do a chapter a day until this is all up!
> 
> Did I write this chapter mainly so I could write Skelly dialogue? Absolutely. Do I have regrets about that? Not at all. 'Disarray my vertebrae' and 'overtly or covertly sexual' is my magnum opus. There will be a smooch next chapter so I trust you can indulge me in my Skelly dialogue at this time. That's right: next kissing, there will be chapter, and that's a promise.


	4. Test Your Hypothesis With An Experiment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Son of Hades,” Chaos said, opening his fingers and running their fingers across his palm. Their skin was cool and smooth. Zagreus was getting to be kind of an expert on the ways people could die, but ‘holding hands’ was new. Maybe all the wretches would be trying it once he got past the Bone Hydra.

It was the second time this escape attempt that Zagreus had dropped through a gate into Chaos’ domain. He practically bounced when his sandals touched the ground the second time, beaming enormously, happier than a Labrador puppy at the beach.

“Master Chaos, that last boon you gave me was a _treat_ ,” he said, before they had even opened their mouth to speak. “Now I can just...” he mimed swinging his fists. “PSCHEW! It’s fantastic! _You’re_ fantastic!”

“You made a wise choice,” said Chaos, rather modestly, Zagreus thought.

“Your boon kicked _ass,_ you mean,” said Zagreus. “Thank you. _Thank_ you. I could kiss you!” He squeezed their hands, and only then realised that at some point he had grabbed their hands, and then he caught up to the rest of what he had been saying, too. “Oh. Shit. Sorry. I’m a bit hopped up. Adrenaline, boons from Aphrodite and Dionysus, and...” he trailed off as Chaos looked down at his hands, which were small in theirs. The boons they had generated evaporated behind them as their focus changed.

“Son of Hades,” Chaos said, opening his fingers and running their fingers across his palm. Their skin was cool and smooth. Zagreus was getting to be kind of an expert on the ways people could die, but ‘holding hands’ was new. Maybe all the wretches would be trying it once he got past the Bone Hydra. They ran their thumb up the inside of his wrist. It was clear their fingers could meet around his forearm, but they didn’t seem interested in that. Instead, their thumb rested over his pulse. He could feel it galloping against their touch.

“Yeah?” said Zagreus, weakly.

“You could,” Chaos said. “The possibility exists. I am intrigued by it.”

“I could…” Zagreus said, trailing off as he reran his enthusiastic babbling back in his mind. “I could… _oh._ I could? I mean, I can?”

“The tense is largely unimportant,” said Chaos. They ran their fingers up his neck, brushing once again over his hammering pulse before cradling his face in their hand. Zagreus shivered uncontrollably, leaning into the touch.

“I could, uh?” Zagreus asked. “You... think we should?”

Chaos, when he finally dared to look up, looked as serene as ever. They smiled. “A lot of half-sentences, Son of Hades. Are you distracted?”

Zagreus stood up on his tiptoes and leaned forwards. He didn’t mean to kiss them so hard, but the counter-argument was that this was _them_. He met their lips with enthusiasm. Chaos gripped the back of his neck and he wilted into their hands. With his eyes closed, his perception of the primordial god grew; soft mouth, strong grip, zero gravity, and iridescence rainbowing across his hindbrain. They were _immense._ He was an expert on dying, and this was like dying in reverse—pulled out of the grip of the Styx into the stunning enormity of infinite possibility. When Chaos deepened the kiss, Zagreus’ sense of himself wavered and guttered in their presence like a candle in a strong wind. He made a small, high sound in the back of his throat.

Chaos pulled back. “Too much,” they said, and he shook his head rapidly.

“No, nononono, good,” he said, grabbing their face and kissing them again. Chaos laughed against his lips and he trembled at the marrow-deep reverberation of it. He pressed up against their body until the folds of their robe, the fabric and galaxies and black holes and lives and deaths, circled him, too. Zagreus, tilting his head so the primordial god had better access to his mouth, was a small, small god on a small, small world, and his problems were infinitesimal, and Chaos was the _universe;_ he was kissing the feeling of looking up at the stars at night, the weightlessness, the comfort and terror of being small. He was drunk on the sense of their eternity.

Chaos had a hold of his neck and the small of his back, and the pressure of their hands and their lips was all that was holding him together. He gasped into their mouth, and even that tiny sound echoed. They held him tight.

* * *

“You are so small, and so much,” said Chaos when they pulled back from the kiss again. They ran the pad of their thumb over his lips. Zagreus tried to take some deeper breaths, but the look on their face—fascinated, entranced—made it hard. “Bright and indelible, like the dense heart of a star.”

“That’s beautiful,” Zagreus managed. His head was swimming, his lips buzzed, and his feet had stopped touching the floor at some point. Chaos seemed uninterested in reasserting gravity on him. Their lips glistened. He wanted to kiss them again.

“Helium fusion can’t be far from your future,” said Chaos.

Zagreus squinted, struggling with this. “Is that still romantic?”

Chaos shook their head at him fondly. “Zagreus,” they said.

Zagreus blinked, startled and charmed. “You—you never call me that.”

“Previously, it would have been inappropriate for me to name you thus. Now I have seen the depths of you,” they said, as though this was the simplest thing in the world. “You are incomparable, and are nobody but your own self, Zagreus, Prince of Hades, pursuer of life.”

Their words had a weight and a resonance to them that felt anchoring, like the concepts had been sewn tightly into the fabric of the universe. Zagreus took a deep breath. “I like you too, Master Chaos,” he said, grinning at them.

Chaos brushed their fingers along his jaw. His nerves glittered in response. “I am going to kiss you again,” they said.

“Yes, please.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fellas, is it gay to write a kiss scene based on DC Talk’s 1998 christian alt-rock hit ‘Consume Me,’
> 
> Three chapters to go! Sauce in Chapter 7, and I'll be honest I broke out even weirder worship songs from my church childhood for writing that one, so uhhhhhhh... stay tuned? Geez, I hope this is good.
> 
> This isn't art for this story remotely, but truly it is art for these trying times we live in. Please enjoy it https://twitter.com/chicinlicin/status/1345331423243243520?s=20


	5. Review Testing Procedure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Oh… dear.” Zagreus rubbed his hands through his hair, stirring up the ever-floating leaves of his laurel crown. “This is kind of a weird situation to have to have a ‘what are we’ conversation in.”  
> “We are gods,” said Chaos.

The deadly, exposed lava of Asphodel had ducks in it. These ducks were a little larger and darker in colour, but they were unconcerned by the heat. As Zagreus watched, nursing recent burns on the palms of his hands (it was like trying to learn how to tie his sandal-laces _all over again_ ), one of them quacked and stretched, flapping its wings and stirring up the slow-moving surface of the molten rock. They were doing this beside a bank of proud green water reeds, somehow not on fire, rustling grandly in the breeze lifting off the hot surface of the lava they grew besides.

“Sooner or later, my father is going to notice you guys,” Zagreus said to the ducks. They did not respond. Zagreus had made it several escape attempts now without seeing much of Chaos—there had been one Chaos Gate he had been physically too injured to use, and then no others. He couldn’t remember having done anything to offend them, so perhaps something had just demanded their attention, or perhaps not much time had passed for the lack of contact to be meaningful at all.

Also, there was every chance he’d done something wrong and they hated him, or had forgotten him, but it was hard to 100% believe that after the kiss, and whenever a dragonfly zipped over his head.

It was hot enough in Asphodel that if he took a piece of paper out of his pocket, it would burn in the heat of the air, but there were insects now. Insects to generate larvae for the fish to eat. Fish to feed the tall, skinny wading ducks (apparently they were called “birds”) that stalked through the lava, birds that wielded their long chopstick beaks with the unwavering precision of a vegan at a sushi train. The wading birds had extra eyes on their necks, and two sets of wings, which Zagreus could only assume was normal for birds.

He shouldered his spear and sighed, turning away from the peaceful splashing of the ducks, and made it to the doorway before he heard the familiar and discordant sound of a Chaos Gate rending a tear in space. He spun.

“Chaos?” He asked, sounding way too enthusiastic to convincingly play it cool.

There hadn’t been a gate there when he’d first entered the chamber; sure, the rooms were all starting to blur together, but nowhere near enough that he’d forget something like _that_. This one looked less firm than usual—not maintaining a circular boundary, barely ovular, with its edges wavering and wobbling.

He stood there for a second, taking stock of his injuries, and trying to figure out what to say to Chaos when he got there.

Chaos’ voice was distant, like it was on the edge of hearing. _“... of Hades,”_

Zagreus took a running jump into the vortex.

* * *

There was a delay before the usual marble floor manifested below his feet, like everything was happening more slowly. Zagreus hung in space watching Chaos’ domain gradually form around him. The floor was metres below him, and the columns were splayed out and spreading dust through space. Eventually, bored and weightless, he risked doing a backflip, which turned out to be easier to start than stop.

“Oh dear,” he said, waving his arms helplessly.

His motion was halted by—by—

“It was not my intention to appear to you this way,” Primordial Chaos said, their voice booming, their crown eclipsing the light of a nearby sun.

“You’re uh,” Zagreus said, finding his balance in the recently reasserted gravity of the palm of their hand. “Bigger, than usual.”

“Yes,” Chaos said gravely.

Zagreus eventually gave up on trying to look up at them and sat down, resting his back against their fingers. His burning feet didn’t seem to bother them. He spread his hands and prompted, “Because...?”

Chaos’s face, which was no less devastatingly beautiful for its hugeness, was marred as they wrinkled their nose. “If I may be frank with you, Prince Zagreus?”

“Go ahead,” Zagreus prompted, trying not to be distracted by how smooth their skin was under the palm of his hand.

“I have fucked up,” said Chaos.

Zagreus, Prince of Hades, choked on his saliva. “ _Pardon?_ ”

“I meddled overmuch in your domain,” Chaos explained. They were truly huge. It was an intimidating reminder of what they contained, but also, Zagreus wanted to hug their face. He could have used their earring as a full body mirror. “My realm is, for want of better dimensional terms, _“below”,”_ and here they used air quotes with their free hand, the quotation marks worlds-endingly huge, “your own realm of Hades. Below my domain, again figuratively, lies the domain of the Titans. Due to my recent… project in your river, there has been a lot of recent influxes of my power into the realm of the dead.” They shrugged enormously. “Your father has strengthened the barrier between our domains, likely under the assumption that the progressing decay of his kingdom had caused the boundary between my domain, and the domain of the Titans, to fray.”

“So you, uh... you got locked out?” Zagreus asked.

“In a manner of speaking,” said Chaos. “It is why I appear thus. I prefer to be a good host, and to provide you with the solid surfaces, gravity, atmospheric pressure, radiation shielding, oxygen, and relative scale that you are accustomed to, but I have little control over how to shape the power I can insert into your domain at this time.”

They seemed chagrined about this. “It’s no problem,” said Zagreus. “I don’t mind.”

“The oxygen seems to have been successful,” said Chaos.

“I do mind that one,” Zagreus said. “As for all the rest—I don’t know. Is atmospheric whatever that important?”

Chaos looked down at him for a long pause, and then said, “Yes, Prince of Hades, it is. So long as you treasure your eyeballs, handsomeness, and internal organs.”

“And I do treasure them, and in that order, too,” said Zagreus, delighted beyond belief with ‘handsomeness’. “Okay, so—wait.” _Is there any way of phrasing it that doesn’t make it sound like ‘So, my father won’t let us see each other any longer’?_ “Is this why I haven’t heard from you as much recently?”

“Yes, to my regret,” Chaos said.

“But you’re like.” Zagreus gestured up at them, implying, _like this_. “Is this uh, ‘boundary between dimensions’ really so strong that it can keep you out? Do you really think it’s been strengthened by accident, and not that my father is just... being a dick?”

Chaos chuckled, the sound saturating the space around them and reverberating through their hand. Zagreus felt like his body had turned to hot syrup.

“Your father,” said Chaos, “may be an arrogant blowhard, but I do not believe he is foolish enough to deliberately try to bar me from his domain. I _could_ re-enter the realm of Hades the way I have before, but...”

It wasn’t like Chaos to hesitate. Zagreus averted his eyes as they tried to find the words. He reached out and put his hand on their thumb, trying to squeeze reassuringly. It felt very silly.

“But he would know about it,” Chaos said, finally. “My influence is ordinarily subtle. I would not be able to be subtle to regain my back door into Hades. I would have to force the boundary open, which would invite conflict. I find it is not considered wise to remind a god that your powers eclipse theirs, and you have only ever respected their authority out of politeness.”

The very idea of it made Zagreus giddy.

“The more political method, which I would much prefer, would be to enter the House of Hades to discuss loosening the barriers with him,” said Chaos, “but you may have noticed that my touch on reality can be distinctive. If I enter the House, everybody there who is familiar with my work will know it.”

“I have no problem with that,” said Zagreus, beaming, still thinking about his dad being faced with the overwhelming power of a primordial god.

Chaos, ever-patient, elaborated, “Zagreus, Prince of Hades, your father would want to know _why_ I am concerned with regaining easy access to his realm.”

“Oh,” Zagreus said, and then, with more feeling, “ _Oh_. Uh.”

“Exactly.”

“Oh… dear.” Zagreus rubbed his hands through his hair, stirring up the ever-floating leaves of his laurel crown. “This is kind of a weird situation to have to have a ‘what are we’ conversation in.”

“We are gods,” said Chaos.

“Yeah. But how do we tell my dad we’re, uh. Gods that are, uh.”

“If you don’t want our every encounter to be a scramble for what elements necessary for life I can provide you with, then he has to be told something.” They eyed him. “Prince of Hades, you are staring.”

“Do you think we can still make out if you’re this size?”

“Not without abruptly immersing you in the River Styx.” Chaos alleviated gravity for just a second so that they could move the hand he sat in, so that he instead sat on their crooked pointer finger, his flame-haloed feet swinging over the void. They brought him closer to their face, so that the two of them were more or less at eye level. “I, too, find this a regrettable situation. I would like to fix it.”

Zagreus waited for a moment, and then it dawned on him; Chaos was asking what he thought. They were asking _permission._ They were the size of a lesser planet and they were asking for his go-ahead, unwilling to meddle further in his realm without him being onboard. If he said no, powerful as they were, they would leave it be. “Absolutely,” he said. He rested his chin in his hands and looked up at them. “Thank you, Master Chaos.”

“The next time you return to the Styx, I will follow you out,” Chaos said. “Fates willing, your distinctive energy will give me a point to focus on so that I will cause less damage than I would otherwise.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What?? A challenge to the relationship at the end of the second act?? No way!!
> 
> In personal news, I finally turned on God Mode and wow... turns out there's levels of this game beyond Asphodel, amazing. There was a point where Chaos was like "I find the rhythm of your visits here pleasant, Son of Hades" and I was like "holy shit, they're flirting with me... I should write a fanfiction about this!" and then I remembered that I was already writing one. Incredible.


	6. Analyse Data And Draw Conclusions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “So, Zagreus,” said Hypnos. “I’m guessing you’re to blame for why we’re watching two ancient powers talking about issues with their shared fence.”

The next time Zagreus died—impaled by the arrow of a strongbow—he felt a split second of nervousness before he fell into the water. There was always a moment of horror and confusion when he found himself immersed in the Styx—an animal fear of coldness, of drowning—but this time it barely had a second to set in before he started worrying. This way would ‘cause less damage,’ Chaos had said. He fought his way to the bank of the river, bumping through lily pads as he did, and waded out into the main hall.

“Welcome to the House of—oh, hi, Zagreus!” said Hypnos. “I see you were a strongbow’s target practice. Nasty way to go!”

“Yeah,” said Zagreus, glancing over his shoulder at the river. Several ducks bobbed in the current. Everything looked calm and ordinary, or at least, the ordinary that the increasingly vegetative River Styx was. He slapped a mosquito on his arm, which died and bobbed up in the current mid river to take flight again. “Hm.”

“You seem a little twitchy, Zagreus,” said Hypnos. “Have I recommended napping to you recently?”

“No, I, uh—“ said Zagreus, wincing. “Hypnos, what sort of mood is my father in, would you say?”

“Roughly the same mood he’s been in for the last hundred years,” said Hypnos. “That is to say, terribly angry and judgemental of everyone around him, if you’ve forgotten. Did the strongbow shoot you in the head? It would be a worrying development if you didn’t recover from a head injury when you came back here.”

Maybe it hadn’t worked. Maybe Zagreus hadn’t revived the way Chaos had expected him to, or their attention had been elsewhere, or—he snapped out of it at the smell of smoke. “Hypnos, your scroll is on fire.”

“Holy _shit,_ ” said Hypnos, dropping the paper and hopping backwards. “Zagreus! Is there still an Occupational Health and Safety Officer on the House Contractor’s list? I swear that has never happened before!” He stamped out the fire with his slippers, and nearly lost his balance as the hallway shook.

“Hey, uh, Hypnos,” said Zagreus, “just a heads up that things are probably about to get a little weird.”

Over the River Styx, the air wavered and bulged. Looking at it made Zagreus’ eyes water.

“What the fuck!” said Hypnos.

Dust rained down from the ceiling as the air hummed. Light spangled like it had hit a prism, bouncing back rainbows and flashes of white light. The ducks and water birds ignored it all, going about their regular business as though nothing was happening.

“Who _dares_ enter my domain uninvited,” Lord Hades thundered down the hall, and then there was a shockwave of a power that Zagreus realised he recognised very well, and his father cut himself off.

The fingers of two enormous grey hands, each big enough to pluck the columns out of the walls, grabbed the tear in space and pulled it apart. Zagreus hadn’t realised he had been feeling the House of Hades around him all his life until he staggered as its energies _splintered_. The void beyond the tear was darker than deep space.

“Cerberus needs some credit,” Hypnos said weakly behind Zagreus. “When he tears the place up, I don’t generally get acid reflux about it.”

Chaos, at a much more regular size than the hands had been, stepped daintily through the wound in space, their matter drifting and winding down to form long legs and fine-boned ankles as they went, until bare feet with gold-painted nails touched down on the surface of the Styx. They looked back at their handiwork distastefully, and snapped their fingers. Their power rolled back in like a wave, and the portal wobbled, closed, and vanished.

“And that,” Primordial Chaos said, looking across the river and giving Zagreus heart palpitations, “is why I usually let you come to me, Zagreus.” Treating gravity with their usual disdain, they walked to shore on the surface of the crimson waters. As they went, they reached down, scooped up a duckling, and smoothed its feathers. They put the duckling gently into Hypnos’ hands, where it closed four violet eyes and went to immediate sleep. “Thank you for your hospitality, little doorkeeper,” Chaos told Hypnos gravely. “I am sorry for my intrusion, but I have urgent business with the Lord of this place, and subsequent, more pleasant business with its prince.”

Hypnos looked at the duckling and back up at Chaos. “Thank you, mx,” he said.

“It is no trouble.” Chaos bent down to kiss Zagreus, who was still at an uncharacteristic loss for words, on the cheek.

“Wow,” said Zagreus, still dizzy. “Hello.”

Chaos hummed and put a steadying hand on his shoulder. “I am sorry for the wait,” they said. “I hope I will resolve this shortly.”

Zagreus looked down the hall, to where his father had stood up from his desk in what felt like the first time in years. The Lord of Hades looked—well, as angry as usual, but worried, too. Zagreus felt a stab of guilt that he had thought was long dead.

“The Master of Primordial Chaos,” said Hades, his voice booming less than usual. “What brings you to my domain?”

“Not bad news this time, Lord Hades,” said Chaos, approaching him with their hands spread. “Merely the boundary between our domains.” Zagreus watched his father usher them into a side chamber.

“So, Zagreus,” said Hypnos. “I’m guessing you’re to blame for why we’re watching two ancient powers talking about issues with their shared fence.”

“Yeah,” said Zagreus, still reeling. “Master Chaos is, they’re—uh. Apparently that was the _subtle_ version.”

“They’re kinda hot,” said Hypnos thoughtfully. “Huh. Must be where Mum and I get it from.”

“Oh, _shit_ ,” said Zagreus. “Nyx.”

Nyx was in her regular corner, at the heart of the house, surrounded by pots of lilacs. She was sitting on the floor with her face in her hands, the traditional posture of an estranged child faced with their parent unexpectedly.

“Nyx,” said Zagreus, stirring up embers as he ran. He fell to her knees by her side. “Nyx, I—I’m so sorry. You deserved more warning they were coming, you deserved—“

Nyx raised her head. She had been crying. It was not right to see the Goddess of the Night with tear tracks down her face. She gave a watery smile. “You have nothing to apologise for, child,” she said. “I had plenty of warning and did not heed it. I have seen the handiwork of my parent around the House, in the animals and plants, and I have felt their touch on you, too. I knew this was to come.”

“Still kind of shitty of me not to give a heads up, though,” Zagreus said, his hands hovering over her shoulders before he decided it was safe to pull her into a hug. “Gods, I’m sorry, Nyx.”

“Your father sounded worried,” she said, giving a rare smile. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “It’s about time somebody reminded him he isn’t the centre of the universe.”

“You’re too good to us,” Zagreus said. She kissed the top of his head, and he took it as a cue to let her go.

“You deserve goodness, child,” she said, and rose to her feet gracefully. Power rolled off her skin for a split second, and her hair settled into its usual smoothness and her face lost its redness. “I assume you will want their time, but I would like to monopolise my parent for a moment once they’ve spoken to your father.”

“Please,” said Zagreus. The two of them stood in silence for a moment, before he said, “Nyx, Chaos is… they’re really quite decent, aren’t they?”

Nyx looked sidelong at him. “Are you asking for my approval, child?”

“Nah,” said Zagreus, and then, “Yeah.”

“Mortals and gods alike assume that cruelty is a natural consequence of power,” said Nyx. “I can only assume they believe this because Chaos has somewhat faded from their thoughts.”

“Master Chaos spoke about being shaped by the perceptions of mortals,” Zagreus said.

“I believe now that they’re subject to less attention, they will have found greater freedoms,” said Nyx. “Much like yourself. I am glad that you have found each other in your mutual search for your places in the universe.”

Zagreus smiled, embarrassed. “Thank you, Nyx. It isn’t weird that I’m uh… dating your parent?”

Nyx rolled her eyes. “Child, your uncle once seduced a mortal while disguised as a swan. They had _children_. This is refreshingly mundane.”

“Hey, don’t say that! I could turn into a swan at any moment,” Zagreus said. He frowned. “Just as soon as I figure out what a swan is.”

* * *

Zagreus was trying to teach Cerberus how to shake paws when he felt it—a subtle shift in the texture of the realm of Hades. Chaos had succeeded; his father had changed the boundary. Cerberus’ ears twitched in interest at the change, and then the hellhound curled around to chew on a far more urgent itch on his back leg.

His father appeared, looking more bewildered than angry, for once, and sat at his desk to roll a quill between his fingers.

“Um, dad,” said Zagreus.

“I have done as Master Chaos has requested,” Hades said. “On the condition I know as _little_ about the specifics of your relationship as possible.”

Zagreus teetered on the edge of feeling offended, and realised he was just relieved. “Perfect,” he said.

“But _do not_ get them pregnant,” Lord Hades muttered, as Chaos emerged from the antechamber.

“ _Dad_ ,” Zagreus hissed.

“I’m just _saying_ ,” the Lord Hades said.

Chaos raised their eyebrows at Zagreus, and he shook his head. He gestured over to where Nyx stood in her corner, looking uncommonly lost. “I can wait,” he said.

It was hard to tell if Chaos even heard him once they saw her. They stared at Nyx and glided to her without remembering that they had grown legs to walk on.

“My daughter,” they said, stopping in front of her, reaching out and hesitating. “I missed you.”

“I missed you,” Nyx said. She had started to cry again. “I didn’t know how to say—I wasn’t sure if—“

“I am sorry,” said Chaos, and embraced her. She cried into their shoulder, and they rested their chin on the top of her head. “I can see your power all around me, in the beauty and the darkness here. You have created a life and a realm all your own. I should have been here to see it.”

It took a moment of looking at the two of them for Zagreus to figure out that the floating droplets in the air were tears, perfectly spherical and drifting, and that this meant that Chaos was also weeping. He realised he was witnessing a private moment at the same time as the rest of the house; his father busied himself in paperwork, Achilles busied himself sharpening his spear, Hypnos fell back asleep in the corner, and Cerberus yawned enormously and stuck one of his noses into Zagreus’ armpit, nearly knocking him off his feet.

“Yeah, boy,” Zagreus said. “Let’s distract ourselves with scritches.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am very happy with this chapter!!!! Hooray! Why did Chaos add mozzies to the Styx if the only blood-haver in Hades is Zagreus? Is this pain play? Who can say.
> 
> I realised about when Zagreus does that oh, uh. We might have forgotten about an important key player. Sorry to Nyx for only representing her when she's at her most fragile, since she deserves really to be aloof and sexy-terrifying, but that is not the right tone for "oh shit, my long lost parent" so uhhhh, rip?
> 
> Today: heartwarming reunion with long lost daughter. Tomorrow: weird extradimensional sex scene. Get u a nonbinary who can do both!


	7. Communicate Your Results

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chaos often looked distant, but for a moment, they looked totally vacant, zoning out at a spot just over Zagreus’ shoulder. There was a sensation of something uncoiling around them.  
> “When does it—“ Zagreus began, and then time became totally irrelevant.

Nyx and Chaos stood together for a long time, speaking in low voices, alternating between languages Zagreus recognised and languages that he didn’t. The Lord of Hades had vanished to lock himself in the administration chamber, clearly as uncomfortable with the display these emotions as he was with the display of any emotions. Zagreus discovered a matt in Cerberus’ fur where a seed from one of the water reeds had caused a tangle, and spent his time filling the House of Hades with a carpet of red fur as he brushed it out. Down the hall, a small bird started collecting it for a nest. Cerberus kept trying to lick his face.

“The lilacs in the corner are a pleasant touch,” said Chaos, approaching the two of them. Cerberus ducked his heads down and whined, and then, in a feat of wriggles, rolled over to expose his enormous red belly. “Thank you, hellhound,” said Chaos, patting the offered belly.

Zagreus rocked back on his haunches. “He… likes you?” He said, honestly unsure. He’d never seen Cerberus treat anyone this way before.

“He acknowledges my power,” said Chaos. They bent down to make eye contact with one of the dog’s heads. “I will not harm you.”

Cerberus yawned enormously, and wriggled his way back to his feet. He sniffed Chaos’ offered hand, all six ears back, and slowly raised them to their normal triangular points. His tail started thumping. “Good,” Chaos said, scratching him under the chin.

“So, uh. How did it go?” Zagreus asked.

“You felt the House of Hades change,” Chaos said, “so I assume you mean my conversation with Nyx.” They stopped speaking, and also stopped scratching. Cerebus whined and licked his nose. They resumed scratching, and said, “I am glad to have seen her. She has grown in ways I had not anticipated. I am proud.”

Zagreus sighed, relieved. “I’m glad,” he said. “I should have thought to warn her you were coming here.”

“Perhaps,” said Chaos, “but I think she is grateful that you gave me an excuse to arrive at all. Certainly, neither of us would have dared to initiate a meeting ourselves. I hope that with work, we can find an easier path between domains than the one I had to create today. Now.” They nodded to Cerberus and brushed off their hands. They offered one to Zagreus, who took it. “Prince of Hades,” they said, “come home with me.”

“Ab-so- _lutely_ ,” said Zagreus, letting them pull him to his feet.

The trip to Chaos was much less disorienting if you were holding the hand of the master of the domain. As Zagreus’ feet touched marble, Chaos’ body rippled and reverted to their usual appearance. They sighed, looking immediately more comfortable. As they stretched, their neck and arms flexed in a way that made Zagreus break out into a sweat.

“Phew,” he said.

“I agree,” said Chaos. “Once every few eons is more than enough contact with your father, Prince of Hades.” They surveyed their domain with a small frown. “Is this boring to look at? The House of Hades is very busy. Ironically, in many ways, it has much more life.”

“I could never get bored with you around,” said Zagreus, touching their arm. “Thank you, Master Chaos. I don’t think anybody has ever cared enough about me to do something like you just did.”

Chaos looked down at him, eyes soft. “I disagree, Prince of Hades. Many of those you know would act thus for you. You are widely cared for.” They held his face between their hands. “Monogamy would be unfortunate for you. I hope you do not intend to dedicate all of yourself to me.”

“Oh, uh. No,” he said. “Have you _seen_ Megaera?”

“She is powerful,” said Chaos, approvingly. “And the other one, too—the little death.”

“You probably shouldn’t call him that,” said Zagreus, trying not to laugh. “But, yeah.”

“Good,” said Chaos. They bent down to kiss him, and he melted against them. They were less cautious this time than they had been in the past, knowing now what he preferred. He twisted their robe tightly in his hands as he was subsumed in infinity, his brain filled with bright sensation.

“Mmf,” said Zagreus, and Chaos, not breaking the kiss, moved him backwards. His head spun as they did something to the compass of this place as he stepped back, and what he had thought was _standing up_ was suddenly _lying down,_ pressing him down onto cushions that hadn’t been there before. His grip on their robe faltered and they manifested two more hands for the express purpose of pinning his wrists above his head.

The cushions were a nicety that didn’t seem necessary, because the more the kiss progressed, the less he had a body anymore, and the less up and down counted. He was immersed in Chaos’ immensity, consumed by it.

“I could proceed typically,” said Chaos, lifting their head. Zagreus gasped for breath like he had been drowning, blinking to refocus his eyes. Chaos loomed over him, beautiful and unknowable, earrings swinging, crown shining, all of them haloed with refracted light and darkness _._ The columns surrounding them faded into stars overhead; Chaos clearly considered a roof unnecessary at this time.

Looking at them like this, it took a second for him to catch up. “Sounds like you’re offering a choice,” said Zagreus, staring up at them. “What’s the other option?”

“I could proceed in other ways,” they said. “I could engulf you in my power, submerge you in it. It would give us a rare opportunity to understand each other.” They ran a finger along his jaw, down his neck, and he leaned into their touch. “I think, given your reactions so far, you would enjoy it.”

Zagreus tilted his head, considering this. “Is it dangerous?”

Chaos shrugged their primary shoulders, the small wings on their neck furling and unfurling with the movement. “Not especially, not for you. You are too powerful to dilute, Prince Zagreus, though I will aim to try.”

His hands were still pinned, so Zagreus spread his fingers wide above his head and grinned up at them, delighted and defiant. “Sounds good to me, Master Chaos. Give it your best shot.”

Chaos smiled, and their domain shimmered with it. They bent down to kiss his neck, just over his pulse, and he trembled at the gentle touch. “One of your finer choices, Prince of Hades,” they said, lips moving against his skin. They pressed their hand down over his heart, his pulse hammering, the pressure of their hand both reassuring and frustrating. Chaos often looked distant, but for a moment, they looked totally vacant, zoning out at a spot just over Zagreus’ shoulder. There was a sensation of something uncoiling around them.

“When does it—“ Zagreus began, and then time became totally irrelevant.

* * *

He hadn’t known what he expected, but now it made perfect sense; Chaos held him down, mustered their power, all of it, and poured it into him. It was too much power for a young god to hold. It surrounded him entirely, strong and painful and perfect, all of the heat and cold and light and darkness of the universe, the tremble and potential and _knowledge_ of every molecule of Chaos’ handiwork. The identity of Zagreus, the core of him that was his personality and emotion and godhood, was under pressure on all sides, torn between wanting power and not being able to accept so much of it. He could feel his consciousness bending under the strain of trying to understand everything, could sense the flexion deep in his divinity. It was too much. It was everything.

“Chaos, you are fucking _incredible_ ,” he said, amazed.

Chaos’ voice sounded from all around him and from inside him, until the bones in his ears rang. “You can still talk,” they said, sounding surprised. They leaned down harder on his hands, kissed him furiously, and tightened their power around him like a fist.

“Gotta talk. _Fuck_ , that’s good. Wanna tell you.” Zagreus arched against them, his senses buzzing and dazzled with the pleasure of power, of being overwhelmed. “Incredible,” he said again.

“Flattery,” said Chaos. They gave him more until he was molten with it. The weight of galaxies pushed against him. Zagreus might have moaned, but whether he had the capability to do it, or if there was air to do it in, was another question entirely. Chaos was infinite and terrifying and radiant and glorious. He gasped, writhed, sobbed. They pressed crushingly closer, until he felt them in his bones, in his lungs, pooling in the back of his skull. Their power flooded him until they couldn’t fit anymore, until the unchangeable core of him met the influx with resistance. They pushed. He pushed back. Chaos shuddered. Space and time folded and narrowed, and balanced on a pinpoint.

Zagreus was breathlessly begging them, his limbs and being trembling. Chaos held him tightly.

“Zagreus,” they said, the word echoing through him.

Something gave in him somewhere, if ‘where’ was the right word for it, and he cried soundlessly and came pressed tightly against them, and somewhere, they did, too.

* * *

He was warm and lying down, pressed against Chaos’ chest, and which was rising and falling slowly. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the usual darkness, the usual stars, the usual galaxies. It felt like if he focused he might be able to dredge up the names of each of them from deep inside, from that moment he had almost _been_ Chaos, from that moment of shared godhood. He blinked, realising that now there was a lush potted palm basking greenly beside one of the pillars. Chaos’ domain had been given a pop of life. He looked down at them.

“I was lying under you, before,” he said.

“And now you are not,” said Chaos, their eyes closed. Zagreus had only ever thought about dishevelled Chaos in very, very specific and very private moments, and was glad to prop himself up on an elbow to see them dishevelled now—face flushed, robe rumpled, and, apparently, they had given themself the ability to breathe just to enjoy trying to slow their breathing down. Zagreus wriggled his toes to make sure that he still had the right number. He did. He scooted up to kiss them, deeply, dipping back into infinity for a moment. Chaos threaded their hand through his hair and made a quiet, satisfied sound.

“Thank you, Zagreus,” they said. “You are truely singular.”

“So are you,” Zagreus said. “Wow.” He looked at them, beautiful and not as unknowable as before, and laughed.

“What?” they asked, sitting up. They rearranged themself to hold him with his back against their chest.

He grinned, leaning back. “It’s nothing bad. It’s just, way back when I spoke to Meg about you, she told me not to go exposing my mind to the unfiltered reality of the universe too much.”

Chaos smiled, amused. “And was it too much?”

“Nah, just the right amount. Apparently, I’m pretty sturdy.” He grinned, turning so that he could kiss their jaw. He ran his fingers across the surface of the gem in the centre of their chest. “I am just as curious about having typical sex with you, by the way. It’s honestly pretty rare for somebody to suggest an _alternative_ to touching my butt.”

“Next time, then,” said Chaos, kissing his temple.

Zagreus raised his eyebrows. “Ah, but—what is time, really? Does it really apply to us?”

Chaos considered this, expressionless. “Compelling, Prince of Hades.” They hooked their arm around him and bore him back down to their bed as he laughed.

* * *

Zagreus’ return to the House of Hades went unremarked on. The Chaos Gate deposited him, fresh and clean, on the steps just above the Styx. The wildlife buzzed around him—bugs and plants, reptiles and fish, and dozens of species of birds. Hypnos slumbered on the ground, leaning against a pillar, with sleeping ducklings and several drowsing frogs tucked in the folds of his robes. Zagreus smiled affectionately, and stretched out his shoulders as he headed for the weapons chamber. He brushed his fingers across the shining surface of Aegis, which hummed under his hand.

“Another try, Master Chaos,” he said, lifting it.

_“Excellent choice, Prince of Hades.”_

**_"END"_ **

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HOORAY! Chapter 7 of 7! We did it! I even drew some ducks in the end (prayer hands that my imgur link works).
> 
> I wanted to write this whacky sex (sex??) scene because I kept thinking that like, what if Zagreus' stubbornness and defiance and perseverance is so much part of his identity that it makes him Extremely Tough? Just a solid little demigod nugget? I wanted to imply (without over-implying bc that is boring) that this is not something many of the other gods would be able to endure. 
> 
> This has been really fun! Truly there's no better writing experience than writing something silly for yourself because you want to see it, and learning that other people like it too. Thank you to everyone who has left me nice comments, gotten enthusiastic about overthinking game mechanics and ecology, and also thank you for picking up on my misspelling of Cerberus' name (oops, I'm glad that got caught before he showed up so much in THIS chapter).
> 
> Uh anyway my twit is @briar_rolfe (yes, my real name, I'm very bold) and I guess if there are any things you would LIKE to see me write for this pairing drop a comment here, or to me there? I am on leave for A COUPLE MORE WEEKS and I'm not allowed to leave the house until my roni test comes back negative! So!

**Author's Note:**

> Me? Hyperfixations on ecology and theology? What? No!
> 
> This came about because I was thinking about how Chaos is very predictable in Hades (obviously, it's because the game mechanics would Suck if they weren't) and about what that predictability might mean for them as a god. I was also like, "People keep saying 'river' but this doesn't look much like a river. Where's the wildlife?"
> 
> I think this will be about six chapters all up! It all depends on how the spirit (hyperfocus) moves me (to avoid my responsibilities to my graphic novel outline). Also, maybe if people dig this enough, I will draw some of the ducks.


End file.
